Claire Cottage
by EricaCicero
Summary: Claire moves back to the reservation after inheriting her grandmother's home only to discover one of the reasons she had been kept way-Quil. He is the stranger who shows her friendship from the start. But, he has many secrets that could destroy their bond, or solidify it.


Note to readers: I own nothing

Chapter 1

Inheriting her grandmother's cottage on the outskirts of the Quilute reservation was not something that Claire had planned for. After graduating with her Master's in English Literature, she had jumped from job to job. Getting this degree was probably not the wises career move in the world, but she loved books. Her grandmother used to tell her that no education is ever wasted. Follow your passion when you are young so that when you are old, you have no regrets. So, Claire did just that. She followed her passion. That passion took her to an internship where she fetched latte's and filed papers. Then, she moved up the depressing ladder to a desk job editing technique manuals for a manufacturing company. This awful, dead-end job made no more than $20,000 a year, something a single girl can't comfortably live on in one of the most expensive cities in the USA—Seattle.

Things were very different now. Claire learned that her grandmother had made her sole heir to her estate. Although Claire was no Paris Hilton with a large multimillion dollar fortune to fall back on, her grandmother's family had been residents, or as her grandmother would have nostalgically referred to her ancestors—prisoners, on the reservation since its founding. This made her grandmother quite the wealthy woman, by the standards of the reservation. Claire had the opportunity to try her hand at writing now that she had a bit of a nest egg.

Driving down the long dirt road that lead into town, a seemingly endless lane that always frightened Claire with its feeling of desolation and forbiddingness, she could not help but wonder if she would be able to make it as a writer. She had finally taken up the offer that one of her friends from graduate school had made her a few years back. Her friend, Sarah, was the daughter of a rather influential editor. Sarah's mother scouted new talents in the graduate departments of English literature all over the country looking for new romance novel authors. Claire knew it was far from a glorified position—writing four paperback books a year that must appeal to the grocery story type of house wife. Everyone knows those 150 page Harlequin novels that are always in the small book section of the local markets. That was Claire's new job. She made very little, but it would help her practice writing, and boost her resume. The novel that she had completed last year had been rejected by far too many publishers who said that wanted a sure thing. They want to publish someone with a fan base, who has lots of experience. This was just the opportunity.

Claire could live off of her small income, in her grandmother, well, her home, for a while. Living on the reservation was pretty cheap. It was simpler here. Not like the big city. In the city most people are all about take-out food, designer clothes, and posh apartments. Here, from what Claire could vaguely remember from her first 5 years here, and from her family's many stories, people were more about family, love, not flashy things. She could live with that. She wanted that after all. This is the reason Claire had not sold her grandmother's house outright and use the money as a down payment on an apartment.

"At least the greenery is beautiful." She said to herself, tired of the long silence that seemed to fill this car ride. It had been a very long time since she had been back on the reservation. Her parents had gotten a divorce when she was 4 and her mother married a doctor from Seattle—permanently uprooting Claire and her sister from their roots. The last time she was her was the year after the divorce, for her father's funeral. His drinking had finally caught up with him when he was drunk driving and drove off a bridge during a rainstorm. Claire had few memories of him, but the pain was still there for the father, and the family that she could have had, wanted to have. If her mother was correct, her father was not a man she would have wanted to know, but she still wanted a father. She wanted the kind of man that Hallmark is all about—a down home, barbequing, football loving dad.

Her step father had been very good to her. After all, he had paid for her education. Claire and her sister had gone to the most elite private schools their entire lives. He had bought them cars when they were 16, and gave them nice things when they wanted them. But he was never a father. He was a workaholic who was very good at writing checks. She couldn't blame him for this, they weren't his children.

The GPS screamed in the silence: "You will reach your destination in 1 mile."

Claire shook her head, trying to shake away the thoughts of the past. All she wanted to think about was the future. Making it on her own was her number one priority. She wasn't going to go crying to her mother that she didn't have enough money. Publishing novels, even if they were novels she was not pouring her soul into, and fixing up her grandmother's house, making a life for herself on the reservation, learning her culture, all these things were what she had to look forward to.

To her left a stone house emerged. Vines were growing up the side of it, a white picket fence surrounding the yard, a large greenhouse attacked to the back, cute window boxes with pink flowers trimmed all the windows. This really was just as Claire remembered—a fairy tale house. Slowing her Prius to a stop, Claire gazed over the steering wheel at her new home. Everything about it had her grandmother's touch.

Although Claire had been away from the reservation from a long time, 20 years to be precise, she had been very close to her grandmother. Weekly phone calls, vacations, college visits. They were much closer than most grandchildren are with their grandparents. But for some reason, her grandmother had never wanted Claire to come back to the reservation, perhaps it was the memories. But, Claire couldn't help but wonder why her grandmother had given her this house and not her mother, or her sister. After all these years of not wanting her here, all of a sudden the reservation, this house, had been thrust upon her as a little haven to escape her life.

Taking a deep breath, Claire opened the car door and stepped out. The air was cool and crisp with the fresh rain fall that morning and the spring breeze. This place was truly was beautiful, intoxicating with its uniqueness.

Out of the corner of her eye, Claire saw something move around the tree line. She turned to get a better look, after all, she had been warned that there were wolves in the woods. A man clad in cut-off jeans and a black t-shirt with no shoes stepped out. His hair was very short, not quite a buzz cut, his muscles ripped under his extremely fitted clothing. Her eyes bulged, he had to be almost 7 feet all. This was really becoming a fairy tale. Maybe this man, who had a slow friendly grin spread across his face, was the big bad wolf come to grandmother's cottage.


End file.
